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Notes -
I think you underestimate the reluctance of NATO to become directly involved in a war with Russia, which would easily spill outside of Ukraine.
The logic of the cold war was to prevent any direct conflict between two blocks. If the US gets involved in Vietnam, then the USSR does not ship their troops there to directly fire on US soldiers. Instead, it provides weapons to the Vietcong. Likewise, if the USSR invades Afghanistan, the US will simply provide weapons to their local opponents (Bin Laden and the Taliban, as it turned out) to fight the USSR.
This logic is still very much in play even today. NATO is totally playing by these rules, we arm the Ukraine (with non-nuclear weapons) and let them fight and die for their country as long as they wish to.
Quite frankly, Ukraine is not worth a direct conflict between Russia and NATO. Even if the conflict was initially restricted to Ukrainian soil, these things have a tendency to escalate. Say air defense stationed in Poland becomes involved, then Russia bombs it, then Poland declares that an attack on their soil and invokes article five.
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